Habitually Holloway: In Praise of Poetry by: Giovanna Lomanto Even before the event, the room buzzed with anticipation as the awaiting audience waited eagerly for the introductions to begin. The reading as a phenomenon was social, especially in the front end of the night; in the Maude Fife, a flush of chatter greeted me from the far side of...
The University of California Academic Advising Conference is an annual conference aimed at providing professional development to strengthen UC-wide academic advising. Held by a different UC campus every year, this year’s conference, Expecting the Unexpected: Practical Tools for Advising in a Changing World, was sponsored by UC Santa Cruz and was held in Monterey, California. Below, Undergraduate Adviser Katie Schramm...
READ MORE Katie Schramm attends University of California Academic Advising Conference
The department’s own Georgina Kleege recently took part in an interdisciplinary blend of lecture and dance, Netta Yerushalmy’s “Paramodernities,” at New York Live Arts on March 14th-17th. The New York Live Arts site summarizes the performance this way: “Paramodernities boasts a radical and undefinable rethinking of the canon, involving virtually no music. Each section was created as an independent unit...
Each academic year, The English Department’s Holloway Series in Poetry welcomes several renowned and rising contemporary poets to campus to share and celebrate their work. This week, the series welcomed Renee Gladman reading with Nicole Trigg. Renee Gladman is the author of ten books of poetry and prose, including her series of fictional works set in the imaginary city-state of Ravicka: Event Factory...
READ MORE The Holloway Series in Poetry welcomes Renee Gladman and Nicole Trigg
The following speech was given by Professor Eric Falci to the graduates of the English Department of the University of California, Berkeley, at their Commencement, on Saturday, May 21st, 2016. Professor Falci has published two books, one on contemporary Irish poetry, Continuity and Change in Irish Poetry, 1966-2010 in 2012 (Cambridge University Press,) and The Cambridge Introduction to British Poetry, 1945-2010 in 2015; he is currently working on...
READ MORE The 2016 Commencement Address by Professor Eric Falci
“Every thing must have a beginning … and that beginning must be linked to something that went before” – Mary Shelley To kick off Fall 2015, we thought we would return to the end of Spring 2015 with Michael Shaw’s commencement elegy, delivered May 23rd, 2015 at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. If you’d like a bit more theatrical experience, you...
Each year, the Department Citation is awarded to one outstanding graduating senior who is recognized by faculty nomination as having produced exceptionally high caliber work as an English Major. The winner is honored at the department’s May graduation ceremony. Here is the speech delivered by Andrew King, recipient of this year’s distinction. Good afternoon, faculty, my fellow graduands, relatives, mentors, speakers, staff, and friends: It is an honor...
The following speech was given by Michael Dirda to the graduates of the English Department of the University of California, Berkeley, at their Commencement, on Saturday, May 23, 2015. Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book columnist for The Washington Post and the author, most recently, of On Conan Doyle, which received a 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell University and contributes regularly to The New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement. His latest collection of essays, Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting and Living with Books, will be published in July.
This speech was given by Steven L. Isenberg to the graduates of the English Department of the University of California, Berkeley, at their Commencement, on Saturday, May 17, 2014.
Prachi Naik, now a Berkeley graduate, was chosen to speak at the English Department’s 2013 Commencement Ceremony.
READ MORE Our Hronir, Ourselves: A Commencement Address by Prachi Naik (’13)
On April 17th, hundreds of people filled Wheeler’s Maude Fife Auditorium to hear Anne Carson read a selection of poems from her new volume.
READ MORE Holloway Poetry Series: Anne Carson + Gillian Osborne
Simon Palfrey, Professor of English Literature at Oxford, traveled to Berkeley on April 1st to give a talk entitled “Shakespeare: Where is the Life?”
From February 22nd to 24th, the UC Berkeley English Department hosted its first ever Conference on Ecopoetics.
On February 25th, spectators filled all 150 chairs in Wheeler’s Maude Fife auditorium to catch a glimpse of esteemed novelist and critic A.S. Byatt.
READ MORE The Function of Criticism in the Present Time: A Conversation with A. S. Byatt
The Holloway Poetry Series hosted a reading by Major Jackson on Tuesday, February 19. This was Holloway’s second event of the Spring semester, and around 40 professors, graduate students, undergraduates, and Berkeley residents showed up to make it a success.
READ MORE Holloway Poetry Series: Major Jackson + Allison Neal
